I struggle with controlling my screen time. This is probably a specific symptom of my generalized somewhat crippling executive dysfunction, but computers interact with executive dysfunction in a unique, potent and harmful way. As someone who really likes computers and has to spend a lot of time on them, I’ve spent a lot of time developing distraction guardrails for my computing ecosystem. These are the tools and configurations I use, and I hope they will be helpful to others with similarly complicated relationships with their computing devices.
There is a whole genre of soft screen time locks / nudges / mindfulness apps that I have not found to work in the slightest. These include the built in parental controls that are now in vogue with OS developers. A cynical part of me wonders if the inefficacy of these milquetoast built-ins is the point, but that conspiracy is neither here nor there. The important fact is that if you are like me even at all, you will not stop scrolling the massive deluge of internet content because a notification reminds you to take a break. Even slightly harder settings are ineffectual for me. If I can get around them, I will.
For this reason, I have found very strict screen time blockers necessary. Thankfully, there is now a whole ecosystem of blockers built with wide customization, addiction psychology and very impressive strictness in mind. These blockers are very hard to circumvent, to the point of producing enough friction to dissuade even the very technical. What follows is a list of the tools I have found most helpful and the configuration I have built to protect myself.
Cold Turkey was one of the very first blockers I found worked extremely well for me.